How To Pass Your NDIS Audit Without The Panic, with Keturah Charlesworth (Ep 56)

In this episode of the NDIS Provider Growth Journey Podcast, Michael sits down with Keturah Charlesworth from Quality HQ to tackle one of the least exciting, but most important, parts of running an NDIS business: quality and compliance.

Most providers know the feeling.

The audit date gets closer. Everyone starts scrambling. Policies are dusted off. Documents are updated. Managers stop focusing on growth and spend weeks trying to work out whether everything is compliant.

Keturah believes there is a better way.

Rather than treating compliance as a frantic project every few years, she helps providers build systems that work every day. In her view, compliance should be the outcome of running a quality organisation, not the goal itself. 

Michael and Keturah unpack why so many providers fear audits, why compliance often feels overwhelming, and how businesses accidentally create huge amounts of unnecessary non-billable work for themselves.

They also discuss:

•  Why compliance is often driven by fear 
•  The difference between compliance and quality 
•  Why many providers are using systems that are far more complicated than they need to be 
•  The hidden cost of clunky policies and procedures 
•  When it makes sense to use an external quality specialist instead of hiring internally 
•  How better systems reduce risk, stress and staff workload 
•  Why quality frameworks should be built around your organisation, not around generic templates 
•  And how to stop spending six weeks in panic mode before every audit 

One of the most valuable parts of this conversation is Keturah’s explanation that standards rarely tell providers exactly what to do. They provide criteria, but organisations still need to build systems that work for their own staff, participants and culture. That gap is where most of the fear comes from. 

This episode is not just about passing an audit.

It is about building a business that runs more smoothly, wastes less time, reduces unnecessary admin, and gives directors confidence that their systems are actually working.

If you are an NDIS provider who dreads audit season, feels buried under compliance tasks, or wants to simplify how your organisation operates, this episode is packed with practical insights.

Connect with Keturah:
 📧 hello@qualityhq.com.au
🔗 LinkedIn: Keturah Charlesworth

If you want to spend less time ticking boxes and more time running a great organisation, this conversation is well worth watching.

#NDIS #NDISProviders #NDISAudit #Compliance #QualityManagement #DisabilityServices #NDISBusiness #ProviderGrowth

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to the podcast. Today we have Kachura Charlesworth and she is from Quality HQ and what she does is she doesn't get people past their audit, she makes it so their quality just lasts. And what blows me away with you, Kachura, is you're not just like audit focused like most people are. They run around like chooks with their heads cut off for a month and a half before their audit. You just put yourself in people's businesses and then you just make sure that things are working in their business, not just on their paperwork. Now that's pretty crazy. Why might I think that's really cool? Why might I think that's time well spent, money well spent?

SPEAKER_01 0:34

Oh, look, well, first off, no one wants to run around for a month and a half before their audit like a chicken with its head cut off. Um, you know, it alleviates a lot of that fear factor. Um, and I think a lot of the fear factor comes from compliance being built for standards, which people don't necessarily understand, or the people who have their feet on the street who are doing the work every day aren't necessarily neck deep in what the standards mean. So when your quality framework's built for your clients, for your workforce, for your organization, it makes sense. People align with it, they're naturally compliant. Compliance is the outcome.

SPEAKER_00 1:16

I like it. So quite compliance is the outcome of just doing things properly. Let's run straight to the point. Directors don't want to spend another cent on something non-billable if they can avoid it. And let's be real, that's compliance. And that's what quality is almost a word people use when they mean compliance because it somehow justifies worth throwing money at something non-billable. And yeah, directors also don't want to get a phone call from NDIA saying, hey, you're out of compliance here, and here's the consequences. So you've got that factor going. You've got the factor that your staff are already busy and overwhelmed and throwing their time into things that are supposed to generate money, and then compliance, or other words, quality, takes their focus off that and puts it on something non-billable. But I don't know any directors who do audit themselves with a smile on their face. I like I coach these people, they're great, they're they're flourishing. I'm watching their business grow for months, and then suddenly it's audit time, and it's like they just check out for six weeks. Yep. It's like life goes on hold. And people don't realize that till the time, and they save themselves a couple of grand on audit uh because they did so much of it themselves. But I'm just like, goodness me, ask your wife if that was worth it. So I guess Couture, what goes through your mind when I say running to the pain, these are the things that make it hard for directors to be excited about the sort of work that you do, even though you and I know the sort of work you do is done important.

SPEAKER_01 2:37

Yeah, and look, and I think that's part of what um I have to remind myself of because it the work actually makes me excited. I have to remind myself that not everybody feels the same. But I, you know, look, it's um it is where it becomes more meaningful to your organization than it just being what passes your audit. It's it's having systems that um provide you insight to your clients. You know, you're really having a good instant management framework that provides you with insight, it's it's data, it's not just ticking boxes and saying, I'm uh I've aligned with the standards. Um, it's how you support your workforce, it's how you support your clients. Rather than it being something separate to how you care for your clients. And again, coming back to the non-billable thing, having this information is it's it's almost like insurance in some cases. It we don't we don't want to pay for insurance right up until the point where we need it. But if you've got the right insurance in place, the return on your investment is where it's at. You don't spend money six, you know. If you think about your hourly rate, when you're six weeks out from your audit, putting all of the extra work in because you need to backpedal and go through all of these things that you're still trying to get your head around and understanding how they relate to your organization, your culture, your clients, your workforce. Um, if they were built for you, it that's just part of business as usual. It it doesn't become this big chunk of non-billable work. It's it's part of that business as usual. It becomes part of your infrastructure, but a valuable part as well. That means that you reduce risk. I guess you reduce exposure. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:31

Yeah. Okay, so no one wants insurance. I don't want to pay for insurance. No, no, I sure as heck don't want to be uninsured though. And I guess you're like the insurance company, uh, but you're saying, I'm more than an insurance company. I come in, I'll refine your systems, I'll refine your processes, I'll help you spend your time on things that actually have an impact. So in that way, Katrina, you're a bit like say Amy Gray. Okay. If someone pays Amy Gray uh to come and train their staff, they're like, oh, that's an expense. But the impact is she imparts the level of leadership that other people can't impart. You're do you're doing the same with people's systems. Okay, so and then I look at sort of the work that you do. It's different from say Tanya Gomez or say Loafer Consulting or you know, the people who get people through audit, because what you do is you sort of embed yourself in someone's business, but you're not a staff member, you're a contract. Yep. So I hear a lot of businesses say to me, Oh Michael, I'm going to get an internal like quality person, you know, like a version of Coutura. And I'm like, what, you're gonna pay 80 grand a year plus super plus the cost of other expenses to have someone and come and do your paperwork for you? What the heck? Pay a contractor. And so I guess Coutura, you're a contractor, you go into people's businesses for like a fifth of that or something, or a quarter, who knows what, and you you solve their stuff without them taking on an internal person. Why on earth are people telling me, Couture, I'm gonna get an internal person to come and one, they don't have the experience of doing 20 other people's compliance. Two, heck, that's an expensive way of doing things. It's like, you know, buying a car while by by buying a car factory. Um, if I want a sausage roll for lunch, I don't buy a bakery, I just buy a sausage roll. Like, why are they spending their money on that?

SPEAKER_01 6:15

Look, I think some organizations have the infrastructure that can make it beneficial, depending on the skill set of the quality person they get in. So there's changes and there's things that go on. Someone should be focused just on that in their organization. But for organizations who aren't, I think the the organizations who do, or anyone who's considering getting someone in, I would recommend doing a risk assessment of it, which is hilarious. But but really asking yourself what the driving factor is. And I think in a lot of cases it's fear. Um, in a lot of cases, it's I don't understand it. And it's that fear of not being confident in it themselves that means that they kind of feel like they can delegate, outsource, I guess, or insource if they get someone on board. But you know, in reality, part of what I do when I work with organizations is make sure that they understand it, because that's where the key is, is you actually understanding the benefit and how it works. And so you can manage it ongoing without needing someone internal or external, because really your compliance happens day to day in all of the things that everybody in your organization does. Um, so the the thing to consider is why you're getting someone in. What's the consideration? Because whilst they can certainly support the process, they they don't hold responsibility for your compliance and you aligning with it. Um, that's the job of everybody in your organization. Similarly to having a work health and safety manager in your organization. They can put some great frameworks and they can keep those systems going in the background, but it's actually your entire workforce that needs to align with it in order for you to be, you know, compliant and safe.

SPEAKER_00 8:10

Yeah, that makes sense, Katra. Okay. So I guess what you when you said it's fear, it's fear that inspires someone to employ stuff whom they don't need. You know, it's it's like I don't fear the ATO because I pay my taxes and I pay an accountant to make sure that my buzz is sorted and my taxes are all sorted, all that stuff. Yep. I don't fear fair work because I'm like, well, just employ people properly. I pay an extern when I was a provider, I paid an external organization to make sure that all my hiring documentation was on track, all our record keepers on track. I don't I don't live in fear of the ATO because it's ticked off, it's sorted. I don't live in fear of um of fair work because I do it do it once, do it right by people who are a lot smarter than I am. And I guess there's got to be a way that people can do that, can satisfy their fear by having a level of quality in their compliance that they're they're pretty compliant. You know, like it's it's very rare that I ever see an organization that's 100% compliant in everything, unless they're literally like spending, they're not making money because their whole focus would be compliance. You're always gonna be like 90% compliant, 95%. You're always gonna have these gaps because you start something new and then you patch it, you realize, oh heck, we left it an area over there. You're always working, it's an ongoing process. I I guess what goes through your thoughts when I say how do we deal with that fear?

SPEAKER_01 9:29

Um, I think it's I think the the fear is compliance. I think the fear is is compliance, um, and the solution is quality. Because a quality framework's built for you and your organization. It it the fear is the unknown. The fear is, you know, sort of going, uh, the standard says this, but I don't know what I need, what I don't need. It's that um, you know, I work with a lot of organizations who it it's it's the fear of what they're missing is in a lot of cases as well. Um, this and and not being able to translate the standards across health and human services are very rarely prescriptive. Very rarely do they tell you exactly what you need to do step by step, this bit and this bit. And and a lot of organizations find that scary. Because if you don't tell me exactly what I need to know, I can't, it's hard to translate standards into practice and people become fearful in that gap.

SPEAKER_00 10:31

Because it's subjective in that space. If if if you just give me a thousand forms, I'll sign them and I'm done. But if you just give me criteria and I have to meet them my own way, we've reduced it to subjectivity.

SPEAKER_01 10:43

Yes, absolutely. And also, I mean, that's where organizations end up adopting you're talking before about non-billable tasks. When you don't have a quality system that's built for your organization, I guarantee you your non-billable work is much more um labor intensive. You're trying to work within systems that aren't designed for you and your workforce. They might actually be more than you need because you have adopted a system that is kind of a catch-all from a compliance perspective, but you might not actually need all of the bells and whistles and everything else that goes along with it. You could actually streamline a lot of what you do and still remain compliant without doing all of these extra bits and pieces that get thrown on so that, you know, some of the systems that are out there that are offered to people are one size fits all. And whilst that doesn't make them bad, it just means that some people adopt them and feel like they need to adopt the entire thing where they could actually streamline it and it could still be successful, insightful, and supportive of their organization and their clients.

SPEAKER_00 11:48

That's gold. That's absolutely gold. What you're saying makes sense. It's the fear that we're not compliant because we were given, you know, the criteria of you must be able to demonstrate ABNC. We weren't given a piece of paper by the government how to do it. So then we go and pay an external organisation to tick off the boxes that they're telling us we need to tick. They don't even know our systems because let's be honest, they're not going to sit in our business for a month. And and then we just like throw money at them processes of doing documentation that feels pointless and senseless to everyone because we're just doing it to tick those boxes. And then what what you're saying, yeah, and then and good and people listening, I'm biased as heck. I've known Couture for six months, we do a lot of stuff together, and I'm biased. But it what you're saying is that you can justify your fee by saying, no, no, I'll pay for myself in terms of the amount of staff hours that I'll save you. Is there anything in that that you you're thinking, Couture? Is there anything I'm missing there?

SPEAKER_01 12:41

No, not at all. Oh, and I think, you know, even just at the real, like a granular level, if you think about the amount of times that you're you're you yourself as a, you know, as a business owner or a CEO or a leader, or even you know, the managers across your organization, the amount of times they're being called to ask how to do things versus actually having a really solid policy and procedure suite that talks to what your organization does, that's got your culture and your systems and everything built in. Um just that alone, if you if you take your hourly rate and the amount of times you spend the amount of time your workforce spends on actually sharing how things need to be done. And also the risk that comes with that, that there's actually 17 different versions, everybody else's opinion of how that's done. Just refining your policies and procedures, just that one level layer of your quality framework and making it so they're written for you rather than just being a paraphrase of the standards so that you tick the box. Procedure needs to say this, and so it says this. We provide person-centered services, and the standards say you must provide person-centered services. So we're done. How do you do that? Um, you know, if I said to a room full of people, you know, cook me lunch, I'd get a lot of different lunches. And even if I said it has to be Italian, or even if I said it has to be a pasta dish, or even if I said it has to be carbonara, they're all going to have their own recipes. So if I'm not providing them with the recipe of what I expect from my organization, then I'm I've got either all of those people coming to me going, How much salt do I put in? How many eggs is it? What so I if I've got a really well-written policy and procedure, I can go in and say, Can everyone go and cook me lunch? And everybody's gonna cook me lunch that's you know, that aligns with me as an organization as to what I want that lunch to look like.

SPEAKER_00 14:44

Yeah. It does. And it almost says that there's a danger in switching your quality person. The people who are like, oh, I'm gonna pay for an internal quality person, they're there for less than a year, trust me. That job burns people out quicker than I don't know, quicker than being a prison officer. Okay, like that is not a job most people are gonna want. So you're gonna just change that person. Every time you change the person, they're gonna bring in new things. I just don't think having an internal quality person is is the way to go for most businesses, up to say 40 staff. I look at the model of what you offer, and then I offer I look at say what 10 say 10 year gomez offers. So Tanya Gomez gets you through audit. Now, for people who are just starting out, great, just get me up and running because in the early days you just need to be compliant so you can survive, and then you can generate money, and then you can use that money to build better systems and better marketing and better everything. So in the early days, I can see why someone's just like get me through audit, but there does come a scale where you actually need someone who's just gonna make it work, uh and and that's where someone like you comes in. So can I ask you some questions about how you've grown your business? Yeah, sure. All right, so about six months ago, you were you you were a very small operator, you had um like you were outstanding at your work, but you weren't a hundred percent at capacity. Whereas right now, heck, you've got a lot on. You know, you can take a few people on, but gee, it's you you you're gonna pick carefully who you work with. How did what were the steps you took to do that? Because I know you've done a lot of work.

SPEAKER_01 16:15

Yeah, look, I think it's been oh, it's been a process. But um probably practicing what I preach to a degree, um, and and refining my systems, um, reviewing my non-billables and whether or not I actually needed to do them all. Um, but also getting the right support, getting help for myself as someone who runs business to be able to think sometimes you you're really in the in the weeds and just having someone else, somebody else's eyes, fresh eyes on it to kind of give you a different perspective.

SPEAKER_00 16:50

Okay. This is gold. So yeah. So people who are listening who they've got they're running a team of between one and seven, okay. They're the ones who really need to focus on getting rid of the non-billables, focus on the billables, okay? Yeah. After you get to seven, you know what your processes are and you're using AI and stuff to to to streamline a lot of non-billables. But what were the non-billable things that you decided to stop doing or to change how you did them so that you could get back to us?

SPEAKER_01 17:18

Um in a lot of cases it was it was what I was spending my time on. So focusing on the value, and I don't just mean dollar value, because sometimes your return on your investment isn't doesn't come straight back into your pocket. Um, so really being able to assess the value of all of the tasks that I was undertaking. Um and yeah, look, I again I come back to risk assessment really often, but it's a key part of what I do in both my personal and my professional life. So understanding what the risk is as well, and and doing a bit of a risk assessment of the work that I'm doing and and prioritizing the things that really need to be top of my list. And I think just in doing that, just in being reflective in that way, really helped for me to reassign tasks, and now at the point of of trying to look at where I'm delegating, what I'm delegating, how I delegate.

SPEAKER_00 18:25

Because you have more work than one person can do. So I I do. So either systems need to change or we need more people, and one of them is cheaper. Okay. Yeah. And it's funny about what you're saying is as you grow, you do need to reassign how you spend your time. When I first started Kutura, I did a lot of networking events. I'd go to, you know, ready set, go and preach your stuff to people events, and I I'd sit there and I I did get work from it, but I really hated the experience of these network of all these different types of networking events and how it was like just someone telling me how good they are. I'm like, why doesn't someone ask me what I want or what I need? And so then I I went to these events and I'd just sit with people and ask them, What do you need? And then they'd tell me I'd be like, sure, I'll make that happen. Or is it all? Here's the price. And that was great. Okay. That was in the early days back when I was doing lots and lots of websites, like many, many dozens of websites a year for people. But then after a while, the networking events, I looked at how I was spending my time, and networking events are non-billable. So if you're driving two or three hours to go to a networking event, you've just written off a day, and your wife and kids are like, Oh, I wonder where where dad is, you know. So I actually do zero networking events now. Oh no, I do one. I'm gonna pull Brian's conference once a year because it's it's just outstanding. But apart from that, nothing else, because my time is better off spent on LinkedIn just messaging the people who I already know, just asking them if they know anything, or just giving them resources. So I guess what you're describing is this process where in the early days you're trying to find what works, and then you find it, and then you're in trapeat. Is that what I'm hearing?

SPEAKER_01 19:58

Yeah, I'm looking and I think there's absolutely, absolutely. I think um there's also this maturity of of systems. I think there's got to be an element of when you first start out, you know, you've you've taken notes on napkins, and you know, you've you've got Outlook doing one thing, and you've got something else doing something else. And so I think there's a maturity of the systems and the structures. And um when you review them and refine them, it can make a huge amount of difference as well. So, you know, I I look, I'm the same as you as far as absolutely um, you know, the networking. I I actually enjoy it, but I agree. I'm like, how many of these am I doing in love? And you know, in the time that goes, I don't think they're incredibly valuable. I love connecting with people. Um but really the the other side of that is evolving and making sure that you're constantly assessing where you're at and where you can make those improvements and where you can streamline. It can make all the difference because I think you end up where you're focused on the goal and you're just getting there with what you've got. And you, you know, you strap your stuff on your back and then you pick extra bits up as you go and as you need them, but they don't necessarily talk to each other or work together. But yeah, so one of the things I did was was streamline the systems I was using and and actually do some research into finding something that meant that I didn't have to open up seven different programs to send an invoice or to do something else, or to, you know, I'm I'm I'm emailing someone, but I want to, you know, I want to make sure that I've got a record of that, or or you know, I want to chase them up in two weeks. So I created some systems around, and I think that's a common, a common thing for people who are running organizations is that you you don't always go back. You don't always go back and refine.

SPEAKER_00 21:58

No, you don't.

SPEAKER_01 22:00

Because you're so deep in it.

SPEAKER_00 22:01

That's right.

SPEAKER_01 22:02

It's like I don't have time. But the time that you actually save spending or investing that time to go back, reflect, and go, what are we doing? We've, you know, this new sis this new pro part of the process came in and and we just kind of stuck it in the middle there, rather than going, hang on a minute, let's go back and look at our end-to-end process, do a bit of a process map, and go, we're like our process now goes like this to get us to this end spot. How can we make it so that what can we lose? What you know, what safeguards do we have in place that are now just over the top?

SPEAKER_00 22:38

But you just justified why someone needs someone like you in their business. Because what happens is otherwise, a year and a half later, people are ticking boxes, following processes, using three systems, when they just need someone to come and go, hold on, guys, this is crazy. Let's just go and pay the big bucks for the proper software and save some stuff time. People balk at like a thousand bucks a month or whatever for software. I run like say when I'm doing someone's say Google Ads, I run them through like some really expensive software. It cost me the earth. But if I didn't have that software, it would cost me so much more time. And people are like, I can't believe you pay X amount of $100 just for this software for each client. I'm like, yeah, I know, but if I don't spend that money, their landing pages won't work. And who are they going to phone when things are breaking? Me. So it's all about saving me time. And I don't care if I pay $600 for this software, $1,000 for that software, I don't care. What I care about is my time. Now, if if we take that and apply it to most NDIS businesses, it's not the director's time, it's the staff time. And that costs real dollars.

SPEAKER_01 23:37

Absolutely. And timing's really important. Timing's really important with that as well. And look, it's never too late. Um, but the longer you leave it, the more um the more cost is involved. You've got to now transition, you know, we used to have 10 clients, now we've got 120. I've now got to transition all of their information over, or we've we've got more staff to teach a new system all in one go. Um, rather than it being future focused. If you've got goals for your organization for growth, implement the system now that's going to take you further because changing it down the track is going to it's going to be painful. Not suggesting it's not worth it. Completely different conversation than waiting to do it later.

SPEAKER_00 24:27

It's like a do it right sort of.

SPEAKER_01 24:30

Do it once, do it well. Yep. Um, and you know, you may have to come back and redo it. But set out to do it once and do it well, because yeah, the the cost of redoing things is can be massive. Um but the extra, like you were saying, you know, you think about the the monthly cost of a of a platform or a system, um, translate it into your hourly rate. Translate it into what that would save you and and you know, and do do your due diligence, like do your research, go out and find the right system for you. And that might be based on how much time you're spending doing a task at the moment. You know, if it's payroll, then make sure that that's something that has that is feature rich in the system that you're looking at. Um, so that it's it's already going to save you money by from from the first day that you implement it.

SPEAKER_00 25:27

Yeah. Um this is great. I'm loving hearing this because I feel like, oh my goodness, people are gonna benefit from this. I guess the systems you build when you're a one-person show are so different from when you've got two staff. Because once you've got yeah, when you've got two staff, you need a level of oversight and accountability, so a bit more documentation. Then when you've got about 10 staff, it's like, or so eight to ten staff, you have to redo everything because everything we had that was oversight and helpful and it's just become bureaucra bureaucratic disaster. So you rebuild it then, and then probably around between 30 and 50 staff, again, completely rebuild it at some point there because what you had is no longer useful. Also, as time goes on, last year's software's useless to you. I remember I used to use dragon software, like voice to text. I used that literally for 15 years, okay. You I'd get the update. I thought it was the B's knees. People thought I was super techie because I was using it like 15 years ago. Dragon software compared with what I use now is nowhere near as good. And what I use now costs me next to nothing. Uh, people can look it up, it's WhisperFlow, W-I-S-P-R flow. Yep. Cheap as chips, does a better job than the Dragon Software. So you've got your businesses growing, you've got time's passed, and therefore better products are coming out. But what I don't want to hear is is say, for example, there's a business that I did some work with that they're on shift care, like every other second second business, and their turnover would be somewhere between, say, three and four mil. And they're upset because shift care costs them about 800 bucks a month. I'm like, guys, that 800 bucks a month is cheap as chips. So you want to throw money at software, you want to throw money at professionals to implement your software, you want to throw money at someone like Yucatura, who's gonna go, what are you doing? This is crazy. Let's change this. Like, let's let's not have A, B, C, D. Let's just go straight from A to D by doing this. Uh and and I think I think the value you bring people is you ask the hard questions that they haven't been asking themselves. I I think the hard the barrier that you face is that you don't bring money in the door tomorrow. If I run Google Ads for someone, I can demonstrate within a month you paid X amount of dollars and we brought back four times X. Great solved. You don't have that. You're like, hey, I brought you zero dollars, but I saved you from being on the front page of the news. Like that's less compelling, but it's probably just as important, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:42

Quality's never been sexy, um, as far as being appealing for people. Um and you know, I think a lot of people see it as as um, you know, as a bit of the the fun police. But but in reality it it's it's it's actually can be incredibly insightful. It's not just about highlighting the stuff that's going wrong all the time, um, because you can learn just as much from the stuff that's going really well and how you implement and embed that across your organization rather than it being isolated to a team or an individual who who has a particular approach that everybody loves that's come up with some great streamlined way of doing things. Yeah, it is. And look, there are some really quick wins that you can turn around. Like I said before, go in and work with organizations who are battling under the weight of really big, clunky systems that they don't understand. Um, so they're spending as much mental as physical time trying to navigate them or work within them. Um, sometimes the quick relief is to go, none of this, none of if if this is in place purely for compliance, it's not actually adding to your level of you're compliant or you're not, right? You know, you might you might be best practice, but best practice is quality management. Best practice is not passing an audit. Um, it it's that's next level. That that's when you've got quality systems built for your organization. Um but just being compliant, it's it's it is a tick box. So sometimes people uh have got all of these massive, convoluted, confusing systems in place. That going in and saying, Do you use this? Is it meaningful to your organization? How could we make it meaningful? Or can we make it meaningful? Maybe it actually just doesn't mean anything to the your organization, to what you need to be successful and compliant. And the relief could just be you it you don't actually need it. It can be an element of of cleaning out, or there's there can be an element of quick wins. Um but yeah, it just depends on where people are at. Oh look and what they've got, what they're what they're battling with.

SPEAKER_00 30:05

Wow. That that needs to go on a website, the compliance lady who reduces your workload. Heck, if people don't buy from you, then they've got a problem, okay?

SPEAKER_01 30:12

So yeah, people think I'm there to add more to the plate.

SPEAKER_00 30:15

That's right. The podcast is not over. I just want people to have your contact details. So it's Kitura uh Charles Charlesworth at quality HQ. If you're driving, can't write that down, send me a LinkedIn message. You're all you're on LinkedIn, and basically you solve people's uh compliance and the quality at the same time as a long-term thing at a lowest cost, but a long-term thing. So I guess let's wrap up with something really important. Is like Katrina, I think you undervalue how much of an impact you're having. Just the more you talk, the more of a resource it's just so clear that you are to people. Because we need people like you to come and say, stop doing more, start doing the right things less. We need that at a level like that's crazy. Like, so I feel like the contribution you have in NDS World is far outweighing what you can imagine, you know. And also, I know I've sent a couple of people up here in the past to say, Hey, go and talk to Katura, find out what you need to know. And you've treated them so well. So, like, I just love to acknowledge you're doing good things. You're like the voice in the wilderness going, guys, do less, you know, like and and thank you for what you're doing. Thank you for telling people to do less. Thank you for telling people to do less, but really well. I really appreciate that.

SPEAKER_01 31:28

Thank you. Yeah, thank you. No, it is, it's I get it. And you know, I I understand. I've been, I've worked for providers in, you know, in that quality role, as you mentioned, that nobody wants. Because, you know, it it I I understand what it's like to be in in that situation, and that standards change and things change and the sector changes. Um, sometimes to a point where you feel like you can't keep up. But there is, is it there's this element of of confidence in in understanding the systems that you've got in place already that makes that much less overwhelming and confronting. Because when you understand your systems and how they align with standards or compliance or whatever it is that you're aligning with, it it just makes so much more sense as to how you would then adjust them. So this has changed, and I understand my system. So if we do these three things, we're we're there. Let's let's plan that, let's do that. When you don't understand the system to begin with, you don't understand the framework you've got in place. It's almost like you've got to go back to square one. So what have we got and how does that work? And what does that mean? And how is it compliant now? So how I can figure out how it needs to meet the changes just becomes a whole, you know, project, end-to-end project rather than an improvement.

SPEAKER_00 32:52

I hear you. And that's why you can't really do compliance well or quality well unless you involve the director because he or she was there at the start. They know why the system's so convoluted and stuffed up now. I think the key thing from today for people is do less, do it well. And if you don't know how to do that, there's people like Kachura who are out that help you. Thank you so much for hanging out with us today, Kachura.

SPEAKER_01 33:15

No worries. Before I go, the best email to get me on, rather than trying to spell my name, is probably hello at qualityhq.com.au.

SPEAKER_00 33:26

Love it. Good work. All right, bye guys.

SPEAKER_01 33:28

Thanks for